Iraq recently announced the recovery of more than 6,000 artefacts from Britain, in the second largest antiquities recovery operation, after the largest operation in which Iraq recovered more than 17,000 artifacts from the United States of America as of July 2021.
During the most recent recovery process, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry revealed in a statement that: “As part of the ongoing cooperation between Iraq and the United States of America in the area of restitution illegally smuggled Iraqi antiquities, the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Washington received two artifacts from the Attorney General’s office in New York.”
Details of the recovery process
The estimated value of the two coins, according to the statement from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, is around $275,000. The two artifacts are a lime elephant and an alabaster bull dating from the fourth millennium BC. The two artifacts were looted from the ancient city of Uruk, smuggled during the Gulf War and entered New York in the United States in late 1990. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the piece of the old bull had been seized from the private collection of antiquities. dealer Shelby White, and the other piece was seized from a warehouse belonging to convicted antiques dealer Robin Sims. Counselor Dhafer Abdul Razzaq Jalil attended the handover ceremony on behalf of the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, and on the US side, Deputy Attorney General and Head of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit in New York, Matthew Bogdanos, and representatives from the Department of Homeland Security Investigation Bureau.
Regarding the importance of the recovery process, Dilshad Ahmed, an Iraqi researcher interested in heritage and antiquities, said in an interview with Sky News Arabia:
- The significance of these two coins lies in the fact that they date back to a distant historical era dating back to the fourth millennium BC, indicating a civilization that spanned thousands of years.
This period saw the beginning of the prosperity of the Sumerian civilization in various fields and fields such as agriculture, architecture, law, culture and arts.
There is no doubt that the high recovery rate of these precious antiquities and treasures, which reflect the nobility of the civilization of Mesopotamia, is a strong indication that Iraq’s activation of recovery diplomacy, Researching, monitoring and following up on its lost items and looted antiques, which were smuggled overseas and sold through mafia deals and antiquities smugglers, is yielding results.
In light of the success of diplomacy in restoring Iraqi cultural and archaeological assets abroad, programs and mechanisms should be put in place to upgrade the various Iraqi archaeological sites and regions, maintain them and develop them in tourist, knowledge and cultural attractions that attract people from everywhere, and in a way that offers abundant financial returns, thanks to the development of archaeological tourism as one of the most important economic sectors and a source of diversification of the sources of national income.
Iraqi antiquities law imposes severe penalties on traffickers and smugglers of antiquities. However, it is not possible to completely eradicate the phenomenon of antiquities theft and smuggling, especially with the widespread poverty, unemployment, and difficult security and living conditions in the country.
Iraq is one of the richest countries in the world in antiquities, so much so that some archaeological and cultural treasures, due to their abundance, sometimes float on the roofs of historical sites, due to environmental and climatic factors such as than rain and torrential downpours.
Iraq was in the past the cradle of some of the oldest cities and civilizations in the world, and thousands of archaeological sites and historical monuments are spread across the country, as the Sumerians, Babylonians, Mitannians, Assyrians and others lived there.
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